MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-protein coding RNAs, generally of between about 19 to about 25 nucleotides (commonly about 20-24 nucleotides in plants), that guide cleavage in trans of target transcripts, negatively regulating the expression of genes involved in various regulation and development pathways (Bartel (2004) Cell, 116:281-297). In some cases, miRNAs serve to guide in-phase processing of siRNA primary transcripts (see Allen et al. (2005) Cell, 121 :207-221). MicroRNA (MIR) genes have identifying characteristics, including conservation among plant species, a stable foldback structure, and processing of a specific miRNA/miRNA* duplex by Dicer-like enzymes (Ambros et al. (2003) RNA, 9:277-279). These characteristics have been used to identify miRNAs and their corresponding genes in plants (Xie et al. (2005) Plant Physiol., 138:2145-2154; Jones-Rhoades and Bartel (2004) Mol. Cell, 14:787-799; Reinhart et al. (2002) Genes Dev., 16:1616-1626; Sunkar and Zhu (2004) Plant Cell, 16:2001-2019).
Many microRNA genes (MIR genes) have been identified and made publicly available in a database (“miRBase”, available on line at microrna.sanger.ac.uk/sequences; also see Griffiths-Jones et al. (2003) Nucleic Acids Res., 31:439-441). Additional MIR genes and mature miRNAs are also described in U. S. Patent Application Publications 2005/0120415 and 2005/144669A1, which is incorporated by reference herein. MIR gene families appear to be substantial, estimated to account for 1% of at least some genomes and capable of influencing or regulating expression of about a third of all genes (see, for example, Tomari et al. (2005) Curr. Biol., 15:R61-64; G. Tang (2005) Trends Biochem. Sci., 30:106-14; Kim (2005) Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 6:376-385). MIR genes have been reported to occur in intergenic regions, both isolated and in clusters in the genome, but can also be located entirely or partially within introns of other genes (both protein-coding and non-protein-coding). For a recent review of miRNA biogenesis, see Kim (2005) Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 6:376-385. Transcription of MIR genes can be, at least in some cases, under promotional control of a MIR gene's own promoter. The primary transcript, termed a “pri-miRNA”, can be quite large (several kilobases) and can be polycistronic, containing one or more pre-miRNAs (fold-back structures containing a stem-loop arrangement that is processed to the mature miRNA) as well as the usual 5′ “cap” and polyadenylated tail of an mRNA. See, for example, FIG. 1 in Kim (2005) Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 6:376-385.
Maturation of a mature miRNA from its corresponding precursors (pri-miRNAs and pre-miRNAs) differs appreciably between animals and plants. For example, in plant cells, microRNA precursor molecules are believed to be largely processed to the mature miRNA entirely in the nucleus, whereas in animal cells, the pri-miRNA transcript is processed in the nucleus by the animal-specific enzyme Drosha, followed by export of the pre-miRNA to the cytoplasm where it is further processed to the mature miRNA. Mature miRNAs in plants are typically 21 nucleotides in length, whereas in animals 22 nucleotide long miRNAs are most commonly found. For a recent review of miRNA biogenesis in both plants and animals, see Kim (2005) Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 6:376-385. Additional reviews on miRNA biogenesis and function are found, for example, in Bartel (2004) Cell, 116:281-297; Murchison and Hannon (2004) Curr. Opin. Cell Biol, 16:223-229; and Dugas and Bartel (2004) Curr. Opin. Plant Biol., 7:512-520. Furthermore, although one recent report describes a miRNA (miR854) from Arabidopsis that also is found in animals (Arteaga-Vazquez et al. (2006) Plant Cell, 18:3355-3369), miRNA conservation generally appears to be kingdom-specific. Animal miRNAs have many characteristic dissimilar to their plant counterparts, including shorter miRNA precursor fold-backs (about 90 nucleotides in animals versus about 180 nucleotides in plants) with the mature miRNA sequence tending to be found at the base of the stem, a higher number of mismatches within the foldback, and deriviation from from polycistronic messages. Aimal miRNAs generally anneal imperfectly to the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of their target mRNA, and although functional miRNA recognition sites have not been identified in coding sequence or in the 5′ UTR, animal miRNAs have been shown to bind to the 5′ UTR of mRNAs encoded by recombinant constructs and to suppress translation (Lytle et al. (2007) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 9667-9672). In contrast, most plant miRNAs are characterized by having perfect or near-perfect complementarity to their target sequence, which is usually in the coding region, with only a few examples of miRNAs having binding sites within the UTRs of the target mRNA; see Rhoades et al. (2002) Cell, 110:513-520; Jones-Rhoades et al. (2006) Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 57:19-53. These differences between plant and animal miRNAs make it generally unlikely that miRNAs will be processed and function across kingdoms.
Various utilities of miRNAs, their precursors, their recognition sites, and their promoters are described in detail in U. S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0200878 A1, incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. For example, transgenic expression of miRNAs (whether a naturally occurring sequence or an artificial sequence) is useful to regulate expression of the miRNA's target gene or genes. Animal miRNAs have been utilized as precursors to express specific miRNAs in animal cells; for example, the human miR-30 precursor was expressed as the native sequence and as a modified (artificial or engineered) miRNA in cultured cells (Zeng et al. (2002) Mol. Cell, 9:1327-1333, and Zeng et al. (2005) J. Biol. Chem., 280:27595-27603). A single mature miRNA is precisely processed from a given miRNA precursor, and therefore such “artificial” or engineered miRNAs offer an advantage over double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in that only a specific and predictable miRNA sequence is expressed, limiting potential off-target effects.
MiRNAs have been found to be expressed in very specific cell types in Arabidopsis (see, for example, Kidner and Martienssen (2004) Nature, 428:81-84, Millar and Gubler (2005) Plant Cell, 17:705-721). Suppression by a miRNA can be limited to a side, edge, or other division between cell types, and is believed to be required for proper cell type patterning and specification (see, for example, Palatnik et al. (2003) Nature, 425:257-263). Inclusion of a miRNA recognition site in a transgenically expressed transcript is also useful in regulating expression of the transcript; for example, suppression of a GFP reporter gene containing an endogenous miR171 recognition site was found to limit expression to specific cells in transgenic Arabidopsis (Parizotto et al. (2004) Genes Dev., 18:2237-2242). Recognition sites of miRNAs have been validated in all regions of an mRNA, including the 5′ untranslated region, coding region, and 3′ untranslated region, indicating that the position of the miRNA target site relative to the coding sequence may not necessarily affect suppression (see, e. g., Jones-Rhoades and Bartel (2004). Mol. Cell, 14:787-799, Rhoades et al. (2002) Cell, 110:513-520, Allen et al. (2004) Nat. Genet., 36:1282-1290, Sunkar and Zhu (2004) Plant Cell, 16:2001-2019). Expression of a transgene having a sequence that has modified to delete an endogenous miRNA recognition site permits expression of that transgene in a manner unregulated by the endogenous miRNA that would natively bind to the miRNA recognition site. Because miRNAs are important regulatory elements in eukaryotes, transgenic suppression of miRNAs is useful for manipulating biological pathways and responses. Importantly, promoters of miRNA genes can have very specific expression patterns (e. g., cell-specific, tissue-specific, temporally or developmentally specific, or inducible), and thus are useful in recombinant constructs to induce such specific transcription of a DNA sequence to which the promoter is operably linked.
In plants, many aspects of development, carbon assimilation, and nutrient uptake are regulated by day length. Manipulation of gene expression profiles, for example, by extending the expression or changing the circadian profile of transcript expression, is useful for changing the phenotype of the plant. For example, yield increase can be achieved by changing expression of genes related to carbon assimilation, e. g., carbon assimilation genes that are typically expressed only during the daytime can be modified to have extended periods of expression. Alternatively, the circadian cycle of the plant could be adjusted by changing expression profiles of the central clock.
Disclosed herein are miRNA genes having novel circadian expression patterns. These miRNA genes and their encoded mature miRNAs are useful, e. g., for modulating gene expression (see, for example, Palatnik et al. (2003) Nature, 425:257-263; Mallory et al. (2004) Curr. Biol., 14:1035-1046), to serve as scaffolds or sequence sources for engineered (non-naturally occurring) miRNAs that are designed to target sequences other than the transcripts targetted by the naturally occurring miRNA sequence (see, for example, Parizotto et al. (2004) Genes Dev., 18:2237-2242, and U.S. Patent Application Publications 2004/3411A1, 2005/0120415, which are incorporated by reference herein), and to stabilize dsRNA. A recognition site of a circadian miRNA gene is particularly useful as a relatively short sequence that can be added (e. g., to the non-coding regions of a transcript) to regulate control of a transcript. A miRNA gene itself (or its native 5′ or 3′ untranslated regions, or its native promoter or other elements involved in its transcription) is useful as a target sequence for gene suppression, where suppression of the miRNA encoded by the miRNA gene is desired. Promoters of circadian miRNA genes are useful in recombinant constructs to induce such temporally specific transcription of a DNA sequence to which they are operably linked.